Semantically- and Phonologically-Related Primes Improve Name Retrieval in Young and Older Adults

Abstract

Word and name retrieval failures increase with age, and this study investigated how priming impacts young and older adults' ability to produce proper names. The transmission deficit hypothesis predicts facilitation from related prime names, whereas the blocking and inhibition deficit hypotheses predict interference from related names, especially for older adults. On half of our experimental trials, we exposed participants to a prime name that is phonologically- and semantically-related to a target name. Related names facilitated production of targets overall, with older adults' naming ability improved at least as much as young adults'. Results are contrary to predictions of the blocking and inhibitory deficit hypotheses, and suggest that an activation-based model of memory and language better accounts for retrieval and production of well-known names.

Figure 1

Example sequence of stimulus slides as seen by participants (answers were not presented on the slides until after participants had responded). In this example, slide 1 was a related prime for the target slide 4, and slide 5 was an unrelated prime for the target slide 8. Slides 2, 3, 6, and 7 were filler items.

Figure 2

Percent of trials with Know and TOT responses for young and older adults in the related and unrelated primed conditions (using original data scoring).